The Center is a non-profit project that represents class members pro bono.

Monday, September 9, 2013

August and September update

We've been very busy!

In Fraley v. Facebook, the district court adopted our theory of attorneys' fees (zero value for injunctive relief and for settlement money paid to administrators); the parties, perhaps in response to our objection, upped the class-member award to $15 from $10. So a fee reduction of $2.5 to $3 million, with several million more available for the class. Not a bad day's work, and enough of an improvement that we're not going to appeal the parts of the decision the court got wrong.

Speaking of whether class counsel should get a commission on money paid to the settlement administrator... You may recall the Ninth Circuit throwing out a bad settlement (in an opinion later modified) over Frosted Mini-Wheats that paid $800,000 to consumers, $2 million to lawyers, and some unknown figure to unknown cy pres.
On remand, the parties set up a $4 million settlement fund—but $900,000
or so is earmarked for settlement administration. Is that a $4 million
settlement, or is it really a $3.1 million settlement, because that's
all the class can hope to get? Class counsel is "only" seeking $1
million this time, which is still disproportionate to actual class
relief; meanwhile, the objectors who turned the $800,000 in class relief
into over $2 million of class relief aren't being given anything. This
morning, I'll be at the fairness hearing in San Diego, presenting the CCAF objection of Chicago Law professor Todd Henderson. Class counsel's main argument against us is that we're funded by the Koch brothers (not remotely true), and therefore we should be ignored.

CCAF attorney Adam Schulman filed an objection to the horrendous settlement in Berry v. LexisNexis, which is like Dry Max Pampers, but far worse, with a larger class and the attorneys asking for $5.5 million. This merits a longer post, but we were honored that a passel of very highly-paid attorneys representing a competing class action and their objectors saw fit to adopt so many of our arguments.

In Pearson v. Target Corp., class counsel is seeking $4.5 million for a settlement over glucosamine sales likely to pay less than half of that to the class. I am a class member, and CCAF attorney Melissa Holyoke filed an objection on my behalf.

In the Southwest Drink Voucher case, the court approved the settlement, but hasn't ruled on the attorneys' fees yet. We're deciding whether to appeal.